Product Description

Their eyes met across a crowded room. She was just a poor servant girl and he was the son of a rich industrialist. Er, no, this is a Christopher Brookmyre novel, although the eyes meeting across a crowded room part is true. Where it differs from the fairy tales is that the room in question was crowded with hostages and armed bank-robbers, and his eyes were the only part of him she could see behind the mask. He is an art-thief par excellence and she is a connoisseur of crooks. Her job is to hunt him to extinction; his is to avoid being caught and he also has a secret agenda more valuable than anything he might steal. There are risks he can take without jeopardising his plans. He can afford to play cat-and-mouse with the female cop who's on his tail; it might even arguably be necessary. What he can't afford is to let her get too close: he could could end up in jail or, even more scary, he could end up in love ...Visit the author's website at www.brookmyre.co.uk

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7758 in Books
• Published on: 2006-05-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 416 pages

Review
'A thriller, love story, social satire and a warning against taking absurdism too seriously..' TIME OUT 'Chris Brookmyre is a genius.' DAILY MIRROR 'Brookmyre has no equal.' MAXIM 'Exhilarating linguistic fluency and keenly subversive intelligence' SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY 'Brookmyre pulls out all the stops in this one. His talent for creating bizzare situations, unlikely relationships and complex characters has never been more in evidence. Illusion is paramount in this novel. And it is achieved with an impressive literary sleight of hand.' WATERSTONES BOOKS QUARTERLY 'Brilliant.' GLASGOW HERALD 'Home-grown thrillers as fun and funky as this come along all too rarely, so make the most of it.' SUNDAY TIMES 'If you enjoy intelligently written crime thrillers with a healthy dollop of satire, then this will be the answer to your prayers.' MORNING STAR 'Raw, obscene, irreverant, punchy and sarcastic, this is a clever, off-beat story-line handled with funky dexterity.' GOOD BOOK GUIDE 'Brookmyre finds a rich vein of satire when pondering whether cops and robbers (or even Celtic and Rangers fans) can ever really be friends.' DAILY MAIL 'All in all, it's a cracking read, and one that's likely to make you say 'Aaaahhhh' at the end. Result.' HEAT 'I found myself laughing my way through this exhileratingly funny tale, and found his intelligent observations refreshing.' ABERDEEN PRESS AND JOURNAL 'An entertaining read.' NEW WOMAN

About the Author
Chris Brookmyre was a journalist before becoming a full time novelist with the publication of QUITE UGLY ONE MORNING. Since the publication of A BIG BOY DID IT AND RAN AWAY he and his family decided to move away from Aberdeen and now live near Glasgow. Oh, yes.

Customer Reviews

de Xavia returns to deal with the oddest robber in Scotland
Anqelique de Xavia (A Big Boy, etc.) returns in a book that shows a slight homage to Soderbergh's "Out of Touch" - only the film wasn't quite as funny and featured fewer invectives about Glaswegian Football fans.

The oddest bank robbery ever takes place in Buchanan St and de Xavia ends up as part of the show. Still not over the events in the previous book (a terrorist attack at a Scottish dam) she is feeling restless (it being her 30th birthday doesn't help). And her response to the robbers' leader clashes pretty seriously with her professional responsibilities.

The book has as much anger as you expect from Brookmyre, and while not as funny as "One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night" it can certainly cause you to embarrass yourself on crowded transport - several LOLs are a cert.

As usual there are the comparisons to Hiassen, but reading Brookmyre I get something I never get from Hiassen's books - I know where he is coming from. I recognise the backdrop and the politics, and it gives it so much more meaning. It was years before I knew about the provenance of some of Hiassen's characters (sugar - say no more) and it adds so much more. Brookmyre is a damn fine writer - but I can't help looking forward to each book even more because I recognise so much that is brilliantly transferred into print.

And the evil treatment of a right wing journalist should certainly warn anyone who intends to argue his politics of what the response may be!

Hysterically funny.
This is the second Christopher Brookmyre book I have read; the first was "Boiling a Frog" which was great but this is even better. You'll need to like your humour fairly black to enjoy it and a well developed sense of cynicism also helps, but I can safely say that I haven't enjoyed a book of this genre as much since I first read "Trainspotting".

As a bonus, Brookmyre is a very talented writer who uses language cleverly and is a pleasure to read. Highly recommended, but beware reading in public places as you'll be laughing out loud!

The sacred art of writing great books...
Once again Christopher Brookmyre has excelled himself. The Sacred Art of Stealing is incredibly well-written - from the excellently observed characterisations, to the truly funny dialogue and a plot that twists and turns more times than a big bowl of spaghetti. It's just as tasty and satisfying too, while being much, much more witty and entertaining.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and will probably read it again very soon, just to check out exactly how the plot was set and then unravelled so magnificently. If you're after a good read, and a few laughs along the way, this is your book.